Geo intelligence – the key to high quality customer experience

Reducing customer churn and assuring network quality cost-effectively are some of the major challenges facing mobile operators in the Middle East.  But what are the best ways to achieve this?

Written by Ghassan El-Housseini,
Regional Director for the Middle East,
Actix

I’m Ghassan El-Housseini, Regional Director Middle East at Actix.  At Middle East Com, I’ll highlight the critical role that geo intelligence can play in focusing network strategies and operations to keep your customers happy and get the most out of your network.

In my Masterclass on 4^th December, I’ll explain why geo intelligence holds the key to delivering high quality customer experience, identifying and leveraging your areas of competitive advantage, making accurate and cost-effective decisions on network planning and rollouts and also focusing and managing vendor and outsourcing relationships.

Today, with such tremendous pressure on CAPEX and OPEX operators have to be judicious about where to target additional network coverage and capacity and where to rollout LTE. 

Customer experience issues must also be addressed quickly and, in a sector where the customer is king, operators need to move their focus away from managing the network in isolation to keeping the customer happy through high quality performance.

In such a competitive landscape, it’s also critical that operators leverage every ounce of network advantage they possess in order to attract and retain subscribers. 

Geo intelligence offers a powerful approach for mobile operators.

Join my masterclass on 4^th December to learn how mobile operators can reduce churn by assuring high quality customer experience; confidently select the most appropriate technologies to boost network coverage and capacity; prioritize LTE rollouts for best ROI; and reduce risk through a transparent and systematic vendor governance process.

- Actix is the recognized global leader in mobile RAN analytics and optimization

- We help operators improve customer experience in the RAN, rollout LTE on time, and optimize multi-vendor 2G, 3G and 4G networks

- Actix has an unrivalled customer base of over 400 operators and equipment vendors

- We’ve been active in the Middle East for over 5 years and we have a close working relationship with regional operators such as Etisalat, Du, Zain and Orascom amongst others

Ghassan will be speaking at Middle East Com on 4th December 2012, discussing the importance of geo-intelligence in focusing the mobile operators’ network strategies and operations. For more information, please visit www.comworldseries.com/me and www.actix.com. 

Reducing churn through Customer Experience Analytics

Written by Ghassan El-Housseini,
Regional Director for the Middle East,
Actix

As Middle Eastern mobile markets become ever more saturated, operators are starting to look away from customer acquisition and increasingly towards retention. There has therefore never been as crucial a time as today for mobile operators to better understand and manage the experience of existing customers.

Traditionally this was achieved by focusing on improving overall network KPIs, the thinking being that a better network would result in a better customer experience.  But in practice network data, however it is analysed, gives a poor indication as to the true customer experience.

Customer Experience Analytics (CEA) is a key part of the Actix geo-intelligence offering.   CEA doesn’t rely on network KPIs but instead leverages existing network equipment data feeds to capture call by measurement data direct from subscribers. 

This low level data can be geo-located to provide granular insight into people, places and handsets. It allows operators to finally answer common, relevant questions such as:

- Where does poor data performance result in VIP customer churn?
- What is the iPhone dropped call rate inside key corporate HQs?
- Where would be the most effective areas to target LTE and small cells?
- What is the signal strength for roamers using data cards at airports?

The benefits of collecting this data are numerous. Firstly, by identifying areas at risk, tracking where calls are dropped and assessing key corporate accounts, operators can plan service upgrades that are based on real customer demand. 

Secondly, mobile operators can establish what impact new handsets and features are having on their network, mapping performance to allow better prioritisation of resources.

Finally, from an engineering perspective, operators can target their efforts more accurately at churn zones and data hotspots, particularly as CEA enables the identification of indoor coverage and usage.

Without this understanding of exactly what customers are experiencing – delivered through CEA - it’s impossible for operators to truly improve the customer experience, attract new subscribers or keep hold of existing ones.

Ghassan will be speaking at Middle East Com on 4^th December 2012, discussing the importance of geo-intelligence in focusing the mobile operators’ network strategies and operations. For more information, please visit www.comworldseries.com/me and www.actix.com.